Michael Covel interviews Tom Bilyeu. Tom is the co-founder and president of Quest Nutrition. He is the consummate entrepreneur who went from running a successful tech company to starting all over and developing Quest Nutrition. He has created his own narrative for entrepreneurial greatness.

Tom started out as what he would describe as a “good employee,” with never questioning the system. He didn’t take high school seriously but when he started college he buckled down. He heard that the brain doesn’t stop developing until the age of 25 and that helped shape a large part of his 20’s. Watching ‘The Matrix” at age 22, he realize that he wanted to be in control of his own life. Around age 26 he met his business partners with whom he would start his first company.

In 2012 his tech company was named the 42nd fastest growing tech company in North America. Soon after that, he had a talk with his partners letting them know he wasn’t happy, wasn’t having fun anymore, and wanted out. His partners felt the same way, and they proceeded to sell their company at the height of their success. Quest Nutrition came out of the folding of their prior company. They chose to go into the nutrition business by asking themselves “How can we deliver value to people.” Tom and his partners were told over and over again by factories that they were not able to produce the product they wanted to make, and the factories were right. They ended up buying their own equipment and re-engineering it to produce a nutrition bar unlike any other on the market.

Tom says that the combination of unbelievably good tasting food coupled with horrific ingredients makes for the worst kind of drug. Sugar affects the brain just like dopamine. Evolution has instilled a need for sugar in our brains and has brought us where we are now. Tom spent a long time learning about, from a metabolic state, what is nutritious for your body. The “auto pilot thought process” is one thing that Tom really works with people on. He works with people to focus on what their subconscious is telling them to do, and decipher what is right from wrong.

Michael asks Tom to go into international regulations. He says that dealing with all the different regulations can make a person go crazy. He doesn’t think that we should legislate sugar or saturated fat out of people’s diets. People should be able to have free choice. Tom’s life has been based on mastering one baby step after another and accomplishing everything with discipline and practice. Whether you are trying to get better in leadership, finance, or in relationships, everything is a learning experience. The more you attack something the more it continues to get better.

Lastly, Tom talks about letting go of the need to be right. He got to a point where he built his self esteem around being right. He soon realized that, that was actually helping him move further away from his goals. He switched his belief system over to focusing on identifying the right answer faster than anyone. There are so many that just want to protect their ego with being right, but as soon as they learn to let that go, a whole world opens up.